Seconds
by WriterKos
Summary: It's funny how your life can change completely only after a few seconds.I had no warning of what was to come. And now I have to pay the price for it.
1. Seconds

_**Title: Seconds**_  
_**Author: WriterKos**_  
_**Rating: FR15**_  
_**Parings: none**_  
_**Characters: Gibbs, Ducky, Tony**_  
_**Genres: Drama, Character Study, Angst**_  
_**Warnings: Disturbing Imagery**_  
_**Summary: It's funny how your life can change completely only after a few seconds.I had no warning of what was to come. And now I have to pay the price for it.**_

It's funny how your life can change completely only after a few seconds. You receive a phone call, a letter or – in this electronic era dominated by internet and fast processing computers – an e-mail that changes everything.

There are also events that change your life. Sometimes you freeze on your steps, just seconds after leaving your home and entering the car, and wonders if you've really locked the door or if you've remembered to turn off the burner of the oven which you used to make a hasty breakfast that day.

Those precious seconds - if we are intent to follow our instinct and go back, double check, ensure that that whisper in our consciousness was right – might end up saving your life or avoiding further injury.

I'm used to rely on my gut, and normally I would follow it to the ends of the earth. It has rarely failed me.

Today, my gut stayed silent. I had no warning of what was to come.

And now I have to pay the price for it.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The smell of burnt rubber and cement permeated the air of the crossroad, where the incessant shouting of the firefighters and rescue workers resulted in a cacophony barely overheard over the engines of the jaws of life trying to pry open the wreckage to get the two injured people from inside what was left of the Charger completely destroyed in the accident.

"Here, I've got him," says George Bohan, a paramedic from Arlington, as he slowly helps his colleague to get the injured man out the car.

"Status!" shouts another paramedic Matthew Browne, as he had the radio ready to inform the situation of the crash victim to the hospital they were driving to.

"White male, mid fifties, leg injury resultant of car accident, neck brace already on. There is some bruising on chest, so probably internal injuries as well. Unconscious on site, systolic pressure is running low, we have to move."

"On the count of three. One. Two. THREE." The paramedics move the man from the car to the stretcher, then start running to save his life.

"What about the other one?" Another paramedic looks back to the other team slowly working on the dark haired man in the passenger seat, surrounded by three other paramedics.

The driver from the other car, which caused the accident crossing the red light, is already dead. There is no need to rush for him now.

"Roko's team is working on him, let's go. Go! GO!"

They put the silver haired man in the ambulance, and rush through the empty streets of DC towards Bethesda hospital.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

I've always imagined that my life would end with a bang, not with a whisper. My career in the marines taught me that life should be lived as if today was our last day, as we never knew when our next step would take us.

We might step on a mine on the field, or someone in our squadron could step on it, and we might not be immediately dead, but seriously injured as result.

I've survived bombs, explosions, shootings and car accidents. I've hurt people and I was hurt by people several times, but I've never imagined that my life would change just because a kid.

A stupid kid.

A drunk stupid college kid, who believed that, in his amazing wisdom, he could play God with his life and others driving at top speed in an avenue while driving under the influence.

I wish I could have avoided the crash, but the truth is that we had no warning at all.

No warning.

One minute DiNozzo was telling me about this gorgeous girl he picked up in some bar in Georgetown and the next there was this strong light coming straight at us from my left side in an amazing speed.

I've even tried to move the Charger out of its collision course, but between the seconds that I've realized the danger we were in and the crash I didn't have enough time to step on the pedal to make the car move.

We were sitting ducks.

All I remember is looking to the left and seeing the light coming towards us, and the somewhat surprised voice of my senior agent on my side.

"Boss, what's happe—"

Then silence.

Nothing more.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The incessant beeping of innumerous machines and the sterile smell in the air were a dead giveaway that I was in a hospital. That and the cotton taste in my mouth, which always happened when I'm injected with some types of medicines, the good ones that won't let you feel pain even if an elephant steps on your head.

I blink tiredly, trying to clear my vision, and my deep exhale declares to the world that I'm awake.

I keep blinking, and slowly try to catalogue my various injuries.

I hear a chair scratching the floor, and the sound of soft steps approaching my bedside.

I turn my head towards the sound, and somehow I'm not surprised to see the tired eyes of my old friend Ducky staring down at me.

His eyes are sad and red rimmed, and there are lines on his face that for some reason, I cannot remember seeing them before. I try to speak, but the respirator tube down my throat changes my words into just strange moans.

"Calm down, Jethro. I have to say I'm quite glad to see you awake."

He stretches his hand and presses a button, and slowly the bed which I'm in starts to elevate the upper part, leaving me in a soft inclination.

"Uhmmh uuhmm" I try to ask something, but Ducky is Ducky, and he knows me well.

"No need to rush, Jethro. You've been unconscious for three days. You suffered a collapsed lung resultant of cracked rib which nicked the lung tissue, and also your legs are going to be in traction for a long, long time. You've suffered considerable bruising on them, compounded by a transverse fracture on your left leg."

Ducky leans over me and rearrange my pillows, looking at me with kind eyes.

"You also don't look so hot, not your usual charming self, as you have some bruising on your face, resultant of the deployment of the airbag. Thank God the doctors couldn't find any spine injury, but they've preferred to wait until you were awake to reach a final verdict."

"Uhmmmm uhmmm" I try to ask again, and finally Ducky understands what I want to know.

"Regarding our dear Anthony, his injuries were not as serious as yours, but equally incapacitating. He had a very serious whiplash concussion, and was admitted into observation for a few days until the doctors can rule out for sure any type of brain injury. Poor boy has been plagued by very strong headaches since the accident. He had minor cuts on his face and arms and a strain on his back and neck, so he will also be forced to stay out of the field for some weeks until he receives the okay of his doctors to go back to light duty."

I close my eyes as I hear that, relief filling out my being as I now know that, thanks to a small miracle, I wasn't an unwilling participant in my Senior Agent's end.

I breathe in an out for some moments, trying to remember the few seconds before the speeding car crashed into us.

Nothing comes to my mind, just flash of the light coming towards us.

"Jethro?"

I open my eyes, and turn my head so I can see my old friend, who is looking worriedly at me.

"I have to tell you that the doctors are not very … forthcoming with your recuperation. Due to your age, there is a very real possibility that your leg bones don't regenerate as quickly or as firmly as before, which would result with you probably… being taken out of the field permanently."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

And those words, softly spoken by Ducky in a hospital room in Bethesda, sealed the change in my life. Change that happened only after a few seconds driving through a crossroad in Arlington in a Thursday night.

TBC


	2. After Seconds

****

_****_

Chapter 2: After Seconds

The beep of the elevator announced the arrival of people in the bullpen which, for some reason, seemed sadder in that Monday morning.

The light haired man leaves the car after two other people and walks towards his desk; his steps weren't as bouncy as usual at this time of the morning, instead they were almost dragging on the floor as if he could barely hide his wish to be far away from here.

He silently nods to the brown haired beauty sitting on her work desk, staring forlornly at the empty desk right in front of her. She lifts tired eyes to him, and reciprocates silently, turning to her computer screen and typing slowly whatever she was working at.

"Morning, Ziva."

"Good Morning, McGee."

McGee leaves his backpack beside his desk, and sits on his chair. He sighs deeply as he looks across his desk to Gibbs' desk, then at Tony's, both of them empty.

"Have you heard the latest news?"

"No, what's up?"

Ziva turns to him and leans over her desk, and says in a low voice, "Besides grounding us until second orders, Vance is looking around for another senior agent to act as leader of the MCRT for an undefined period of time."

"Undefined?"

McGee looks around and rushes to stand besides Ziva's desk. "But Tony is coming back in two weeks tops, and it would be only logical for him to step up as…"

"As he has done it before, when Gibbs took his little vacation to Mexico," completes Ziva, who leans her head to her right, silently asking McGee to come closer to her.

McGee leans closer to her, his hands - one on the table, the other on her chair back – supporting him and stares at her face as he processes the scuttlebutt she's sharing with him.

"Who told you that?"

"Janine, Vance's secretary cornered me on the ladies room asking about Gibbs' health, and wanting to know if it was true the rumor that he wasn't coming back."

McGee sighs loudly, and shakes his head.

"This whole situation sucks. Tony is still under observation because he's still feeling headaches and his back is bothering him. I've seen him last night and he was trying to be brave and make some jokes but… I could see he was in pain."

"I know. I've visited him and Gibbs too during the weekend and it's … hard to see them like that."

Both agents stay in silence, wondering how fast the lives of two of their coworkers changed.

"Any news of the driver?" Ziva asks softly, staring at her hands.

"I've spoken to the patrol officer who was one of the first on the scene. He gave me the phone number and the address of the kid's family. I was planning on dropping by later on."

"Do you want company?"

"You are most welcome."

They smile at each other, as both imagine the interrogation session they will soon have with the irresponsible youth's family, but their mirth is soon gone.

"What's going to happen now? To us? To them?"

McGee turns to Tony's empty desk and stares at it for a minute, before answering Ziva's question, which was the same one which kept him awake the whole night after he visited Gibbs and DiNozzo in the hospital the night before.

The accident had been four days ago, on Thursday night , but it already seemed that it had happened ages ago.

The NCIS issued Charger Dodge Charger was totaled and the doctors said that it had been a small miracle that both agents received only what he considered minor injuries, as the driver of the other car was killed immediately on impact.

He wasn't wearing a seatbelt, so he was catapulted out of the moving vehicle; such was the speed and the intensity of the crash. When the rescue crews arrived at the scene, there wasn't anything to be done for him.

Everything was different; everything wasn't the same as it was before. Gibbs wasn't coming back, and even if he tried, it would take months for his damaged legs to heal enough only for him to be admitted in light duty.

Vance's suggestion was a disability retirement, as he saw no point of rushing the treatment and shortening the recuperation period based solely in the improbable chance of getting him back to business.

Gibbs wasn't happy with the option, McGee could tell that from the Boss' face, but the doctors estimated at least six months for his leg bones to be strong enough for him to support himself without crutches, then more six months of physiotherapy to learn how to walk again unaided.

If there weren't any setbacks in his recovery during that period of time.

About them, as a team, things were complicated at best.

"We must stay off rotation anyway, because we can't go on cases only with two agents. That's not how things are done in NCIS. Depending on how fast Vance finds a senior agent to work with us and how well Tony is feeling by the end of the week, we might have gone back to rotation maybe in two weeks. If things go south, the worst case scenario I can think of is… reassignments, for both of us."

Ziva looks up at McGee, and sees that he is dead serious about that.

"He wouldn't do that, would he? Tear us apart again?"

"He has done it before, for his own reasons, I suppose. Now it's more a matter of what's best for the agency, not what's best for us as a team."

Ziva shakes her head, "This shouldn't have happened."

"No, it shouldn't. But it did."


	3. After Days

**_Chapter 3: After Days_**

Abby dropped by every single day since I was admitted to the hospital, either visiting me or Tony, and bringing me news of NCIS, even though the chance of me ever returning as an active agent became more and more remote as the days and hours went by.

Since the moment I woke up in my hospital bed in Bethesda, I was surrounded by doctors, nurses, specialists and shrinks, all of them wanting to poke me, draw a little bit more of blood, or simply keep asking me repeatedly how I was feeling.

"How are you feeling, Agent Gibbs?" the morning/afternoon/evening nurse would ask, their faces becoming the same before my eyes, my brain incapable of dealing with the very real possibility of not doing the job I love anymore.

Not that I care only for it, it's just… ah… crap.

My work used to define a very big chunk of who I am, as I've dedicated several years – if you also consider my stint as a marine, several decades – to the service. When I've lost… ah… when I've lost… Shannon… and … my little girl … Kelly… the job was the only thing that kept me going for a while.

Of course, that and the desire to kill that bastard, but that was before I joined NCIS as a field agent. And that is in the past now.

Then the others slowly came into my life, and miraculously stayed. First it was Ducky, with his incessant good cheer and endless talking, which somehow fitted well with my taciturn personality and … how does DiNozzo calls it again… ahh my functional muteness.

Abby entered my life as a whirlwind, simply destroying all my misconceptions about her on the first five minutes I spoke to her.

Then the man himself, DiNozzo, came into my life, with his easy smile and eagerness to be acknowledged as a good agent. He's been through a lot before being assigned as my agent; he was shot at, kidnapped, his car exploded and he was infected with the plague while working with me. But still, for some reason, he has stayed, despite my barks and my continuous headslapping.

He has stayed, right there, on my six.

After DiNozzo, I would soon adopt McGee into my team, my family, with his computer sized brain and his dazzling intelligence, coupled with a long lasting stuttering that took me years of careful marine style tutoring to get rid of it. I've recognized the raw diamond in front of me, and took him into my team, and I'm proud of the agent he has become.

Finally came into my life my little Israeli Mossad ex-assassin, who has proved again and again her trustworthiness since that fatidic day in my basement.

We might have started as a team, but slowly they became so important to me that I've silently regarded them as my family. A highly dysfunctional family, if I might add, but a family nonetheless, which I had never imagined that I would have again.

And now, just because some punk decided to be as irresponsible as possible and drink and drive, I'm suddenly taken from them.

I'm not dead, but I won't be there anymore for them. I won't be on the field, covering their backs and protecting them. 

And that pains me so much.


	4. After Weeks

**_Chapter 4: After weeks_**

I breathe deeply, happy that I'm free of that god awful tube, but I still have the nose tube giving me oxygen. They didn't want to take any chances, with my lungs still a little bit weak.

The door of my room opens, and I hear soft footsteps entering my room, the door closing, then silence.

"Who is there?" I ask, my voice rasping as I have not drank water this afternoon for the last hour, as the last nurse coming to check me left the jar with water too far away from my reach for me to get it. I've tried, but a sharp pain in my chest convinced me to stay exactly where I was.

"Who is there?" I repeat, and a small pale face appears from the small hall leading to the door, her long brown hair a strange mix with pink and blue stretches of color coming out of somewhere.

She is young, quite young, not older than twenty, and she is looking at me completely terrified.

"Hi," she says in a very low voice, and she approaches my bed as if she expects me to miraculously disconnect me from the machines and tubes currently holding me hostage in this bed and attack her.

"Hi." I look at her up and down for a minute.

She bites her lower lip nervously as she studies the machines and my swollen left leg hanging from traction, and her big hazel eyes fill with tears.

"Who are you?"

"Ah… well… My name is April Gunther… you probably don't know me because we've never met before and probably we would never have to meet each other if… ah… my brother hadn't crashed his car into yours."

I barely keep the surprise out from my face, but I think I've succeed as she keeps talking as if she hadn't dropped that bombshell on me.

"Ah, well, you see," she bites her lower lip again, and her dark eye makeup create a sharp contrast against her pale skin, reminding me a little bit of Abby in her very Goth days. "Your agents visited us a couple of weeks ago to talk to mom about what happened and since then I've been trying to gather the courage to come to see you. I feel so guilty for all of this. My brother crashed his car into yours, but it's my fault that he was driving out there in the first place."

"Explain," I say after I stay in silence for a few minutes, watching her fidget nervously at the foot of my hospital bed while I use my usual glare on her.

"We were in this party, and I've had seen how much he had drunk that night. I was with my boyfriend, and I didn't want to leave Jack so when my brother came to call me to leave the rave, I told him I wasn't going with him. I told him not to drive home, but he insisted that he was fine, just a little bit in the zone, and … and… I left him go."

With this revelation, she starts sobbing, her emotional balance breaking into tiny little pieces in front of me, her dark makeup leaving dark streaks on her pale cheeks as her tears flow unhindered.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I left him go. I knew he shouldn't, I should have left with him. I wasn't drunk, I've had just a glass of beer. I could have driven us home. Danny, he had seven, six, I don't remember how many beers and he was totally pissed. I knew Danny shouldn't drive but I didn't stop him. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She lowers her chin to her chest, her sobs so strong that her shoulders shake with each one, her long colored tresses – is that orange too? – falling over her face, hiding her eyes from my view.

"Hey, look at me."

She lifts her eyes a little, but still her colored hair keeps falling uncontrolled over her face, blocking her eyes and not letting me see what she's thinking.

"Kid, look at me," I use my best marine voice, and finally she lifts her voice and meets my gaze.

"What's your name again?"

"Gunther, sir. April Gunther."

"Don't call me sir. It's either Gibbs or… Gibbs."

She smiles a little at my joke, but soon lowers her chin again, but I'm not letting her go so easily.

"Look at me, April."

She lifts her face and gaze at me, her eyes filled with tears again and I can see how deeply the pain of losing her brother so foolishly is affecting her.

"I'm happy you weren't in that car, April."

Her face fills with misery, but she holds her sobs at bay, and I keep talking with this kid, a little more than a girl really, who came seeking me out and is now folding under the pressure of a burden too heavy for her to carry.

"But I could have—"

"Could have, would have… none of it matters now. Tell me one thing, how old are you?"

"I'm nineteen."

"And Danny? Is that his name? How old was he?"

"The same. He was my twin." A tear escapes, despite her efforts to keep from crying, and she wipes it with her hand, almost like a little girl who has just scrapped her knees.

"April, Danny is the one responsible for his acts. He knew he was drunk, but he insisted in driving. It's not your fault. And I'm glad that you weren't in that car because, if you were, you would be dead as well. Do you understand what I'm saying? Even if you had entered that car, Danny probably wouldn't have let you drive, as he believed he was just fine. A man like him would never let a girl drive him home if he thinks he's okay to drive. Let me guess, that car, it was his, wasn't it?"

She nods silently.

"Had he ever let you drive his car before?"

"Once or twice. He was very possessive of it."

"If you had agreed to go with him, he would still insist to drive, and instead of one, we would have two dead kids to deal with."

"But how can you be so nice with me? My brother destroyed your life! I've spoken to your doctors and they told me that your leg is badly hurt, and you will have to stay for months on traction, and you won't be able to work anymore. He did it! He did it!"

She covers her mouth and sobs, her anguish rolling out of her in waves. I can't move, the central line attached to my chest and other tubes I'd rather not mention effectively chained me to my position, so I simply wave at her, asking her to come closer to my bedside. She keeps crying, but as soon as she is within reach from the bedside table, she automatically fills a glass of water and puts a straw on it, and hands it to me.

I gladly take it and after wetting my dehydrated sore throat, I leave the empty cup on my bedside and take one of her hands, the left one, into my own.

"I'll make it up to you, Mr. Gibbs. I promise I will."

"You don't have to."

"But I want to. For Danny. And for myself as well."


	5. After Months

**_Chapter 5: After Months_**

And it was just like that that my family grew again. It was a pleasant surprise to find out that April had just graduated in nursing, so she promptly offered to assist me and be my personal slave driver and nurse for the months yet to come.

Working with a physiotherapist and my doctors, she cajoled me, irritated me, screamed at me whenever she felt it was necessary but she'd never, ever, let me give up.

Once I was well enough to go home, she enlisted my old team, all of them, to help her to prepare my house to my arrival. Tony, after being out of the field for a couple of weeks, soon was back on light duty and McGee and Ziva were extremely happy to be working with him again, as Vance had apparently decided to reassign them temporarily to other teams until Tony was deemed okay for duty.

What about me? Well, I was a completely different kettle of fish.

Despite of the clean break on my tibia, which was quite easy to fix, I still had a serious laceration on the muscles of the leg and the ligaments of my knee had been literally torn from their places on impact.

A Posterior Cruciate Ligament (PCL) injury grade III, commonly known as "dashboard injury", that's how my doctors and Ducky called it.

Thanks to Ducky and a very inventive team of doctors, I was submitted to a very delicate surgery to do a PCL reconstruction a couple of weeks after my accident, once the swelling diminished enough so my knee actually seemed something remotely like a knee again and my broken bone was at least partially fixed. Due to the controversy and technical difficulty of the surgery, I felt a little bit like a lab rat, as my doctors invited other specialists to "watch" how they operated my knee, and I was almost considered a test subject on the matter.

It seemed that there was always someone checking and measuring my progress for months, always curious to see how well I was responding to therapy, always trying to figure out if my knee responded well to the surgery and if it could be trusted to support my weight again.

Ice packs, knee bandages and crutches became an everyday occurrence to me. Whenever I lay down I would have to keep my leg elevated, with pillows underneath it. Painkillers also became an integral part of my every day morning routine for the following months. Then I went through long miserable months doing therapy under excruciating pain in order to regain at least a little bit of the range of movements I had before.

And April was there, by my side, in every step of it.


	6. After one year

**_Chapter 6: After one year_**

"Are you ready, Gibbs?" April asks, fussing over my clothes and hair as I get ready to leave the house.

"As ready as I can ever be." I answer, and turn around to look at the lined face staring back at me from the mirror.

For some reason, there are more lines in it than what I can remember, but I smirk lightly as realize that I'm actually standing in front of the mirror unaided by crutches.

It has been one year today. One year since my life made a one hundred eighty turn, a turn I had not planned, but it brought change to my life in a way that I had never imagined before.

DiNozzo has been working as team leader since he was reinstated to duty, and together with McGee and Ziva they kept the flame burning while I was away.

Abby, being Abby, immediately connected with my live-in nurse and both girls soon were fussing over me like the untamed mother hens they could be.

Ducky says that my recuperation was extraordinary, despite the little setbacks of me over-exercizing my weak knee a few months after my surgery. I was feeling well, almost like my old self, so I had believed I could slowly go back to my normal exercise routine.

When April found out I was sneaking behind her back to do unsupervised exercises, well, all I can say is that, for a little girl, she packs a mean punch.

She ratted me out to my doctors, who in turn decided to ground me and run a series of tests to check what my little adventure had done to my barely healed knee joint. They've found a small tear in it, so basically I was back again to crutches, intense physiotherapy and lovely hours with my leg on pillows while April applied hot bags to it.

But after intense physiotherapy for several months, I slowly got better. Nine months after the accident I could walk again with the help only of a cane, and I could finally trust my knee not to give out under my weight.

I sat down with Vance and negotiated my return on desk duty, but Vance insisted that the doctors should give me a clear bill of health, in all aspects, before he even considered the possibility of allowing me to carry a badge again.

So, there I went with April and my team of doctors to another round of physiotherapy for more three months, until finally they said okay.

I can go back now.

So today, in the anniversary of my accident, I'm driving my car towards the Navy Yard, standing proud unassisted, and I will walk through the corridors that I had imagined that I would never walk again. At least, not as an agent.

"If I may say so, you look quite fetching," April says with a small smile, looking proudly at me.

I turn to her, and simply open my arms, and she throws herself in my arms, squeezing my middle with all the enthusiasm of the youth. I kiss her colored hair, surprised to have found a surrogate daughter in the middle of my darkest hour.

Her mother, a divorcee who owns a small esoteric bookshop in Richmond, apparently cared more for the crystals she sold or the star movements she studied in her esoteric charts than her twin kids, who surprisingly grew up quite unsupervised. Danny, from what April told me about her childhood memories, was the typical rebel kid, going from one adventure to the other, always pushing all limits, until the final line that he could not cross.

April, in the other hand, despite her crazy hair colors, was the kid always trying to fix things up, always looking for an excuse to cover for Danny's rebel acts, or her mother's inability to be responsible for them.

Her plight touched something deeply hidden in my chest, and despite our shaky start I've started to appreciate her saucy wit whenever she had to massage my aching legs, or rub my swollen operated knee.

She walks out of my arms, and looks at my face, her face split in a big grin, "Are you going to headslap DiNozzo for betting that you wouldn't make it to the office today?"

"So, he did bet on it, didn't he?"

"Yep."

"How much money did you put in it?"

"Oh, I always bet on the winning team."

"Oh, really?"

"Yep."

I smirk and walk toward the stairs, going down to collect my car keys and my coat, "Nahh, let him fret a little, wondering what I'll do with him. I like keeping him on his toes."

Only April's giggles fill the air as answer, as I put my coat on, look around my living room then at her, standing by the stairs, gazing at me with a proud look on her face.

"See you later, April."

"See ya, Gibbs."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

It is a fast drive towards NCIS. I've driven before after the accident, but always with someone with me on the car, and it's different to finally be behind the wheel without anyone breathing over my neck.

I park in my usual spot, nod to the guard at the security check and board the elevator, smiling when I hear the familiar hissing of the doors closing after me.

I arrive at the bullpen floor, and walk with determined steps out of the elevator, going to the stairs to report to the director's office on my first day back to work.

However, I freeze as a round of applause sounds in the bullpen as soon as I step out of the elevator. I move my eyes from the gallery to my team's desks, and notice that, standing beside them are most of the agents of the floor, and on the peanut gallery is the Director, several people that I recognize as some of the MTAC techs and some people from the admin departments.

The applause gains momentum and I look back at my team and see Abby, standing side by side with Tony, McGee, Ziva and - surprise surprise – April, applauding my return to work.

I walk towards my team, and Ducky walks around April and towards me, and I smile as I hug my old friend, who during these last months had done an amazing job no only trying to keep my esteem up, as also worked side by side with my doctors trying to find the best treatment to heal me.

I slap Ducky's back, and look at my agents as I hear him speaking in a quivering voice against my neck.

"Welcome back, Jethro."

* * *

a/n: Not my usual story, but I liked it nonetheless...

Thanks for those who reviewed it.


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